Kikunoi
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During our stay in Kyoto our hotel managed to get us reservations at Kikunoi for lunch. Kikunoi is widely regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world for kaiseki cuisine, and holds a 3-star Michelin rating. Located in eastern Kyoto, Kikunoi is nestled in a quiet charming neighborhood just south of Yasaka Shrine.
When we reached the restaurant, we were greeted by the hostess at the entrance. Once we took off our shoes we were taken down a set of stairs to our private room. The room was lined with tatami mats and had a nice sitting table with floor chairs. At the far end of the room was a window that looked out into a tranquil, hillside section of Kikunoi’s interior garden.
As stated earlier, Kikunoi is one of the best restaurants in the world for kaiseki cuisine, and the head chef and owner, Yoshihiro Murata, quite literally wrote the book on it as well. The book is available on Amazon, and we were provided a copy to read during our meal to help us understand the nuances of each of the different courses. The book was tabbed with each course of the meal for us so we could easily find each.
Once we got situated, our personal server came in with sake to start out our meal. Kikunoi’s kaiseki meals are all seasonally based and will change throughout the year. During our visit to Kikunoi, the summer seasonal meal was being served. Our server brought in each course in a very timely manner. Once we finished a course, she would return shortly after to take it away and bring in the next one.
Our first course was an assortment of appetizers consisting of: short-necked clam and asparagus with vinegared egg yolk sauce, flowering cucumber, barley miso, egg yolk pickled in white miso, octopus, brook shrimp, marinated hairtail and naganegi onion roll, baby eggplant, edamame, and cuttlefish coated with picked bonito entrails.
The second course consisted of wine-poached green ume (Japanese apricot) and white wine sorbet. This course was by far Michelle’s favorite of the entire meal. It was tangy and delicious.
The third course was sashimi, which included blanched hamo (pike conger eel) and seared hamo with shiso flower and pickled ume puree.
The fourth course was a tofu dumpling stuffed with anago (sea eel), lily bulb, wood ear mushroom and carrot, and a kinome herb (prickly ash leaf bud) sauce.
The fifth course was a sweet summer-wasabi sorbet. It had a good amount of kick to it for being a frozen dessert.
The sixth course consisted of salt-grilled ayu (sweetfish) and waterpepper vinegar. The sweetfish were served whole. We had never had fish this way before, so it took us a bit out of our comfort zone. Since an entire fish was new to us, we had to get confirmation from our server that we were to eat it whole. Michelle liked the taste, but didn’t eat many since she was saving room for the rest of the meal. Fortunately, Taylor loved the whole sweetfish and gladly ate all of them. We were worried about eating a whole fish and dealing with the bones and scales, but it’s grilled enough that they cooked down and actually add to the flavor of the course. This was surprisingly Taylor’s favorite course of the whole meal.
The seventh course had kamo eggplant, lotus root, winter gourd, baby taro, snap pea, and yuzu.
The eighth course was chilled turtle custard, turtle soup gelee, poached shrimp, cucumber, thread-cut green onion, and thread-cut fresh ginger. We knew to expect a course with turtle in it, but this one wasn’t very obvious since it was in the form of a custard and gelee.
The ninth course had abalone, sea urchin, and wakame seaweed baked in a salt dome with abalone liver sauce and salted sudachi lime juice.
The tenth course was grilled tai rice with kinome herb, pickled cucumber and eggplant, new onion soup, red Manganji pepper, baby onion, and seven spice powder.
The eleventh and final course featured agar jelly, rice flour dumplings, azuki beans, musk melon, mango, and cherry.
All of the courses were quite different from each other and overall were very good. Some ingredients we weren’t thrilled at having, such as sea urchin (we tried it, but it wasn’t our favorite), but we still ate each course and didn’t want to miss out on any flavors. We expected to have parts of the meal that we disliked due to our western palate, but we pleasantly enjoyed just about every part (not counting sea urchin). Taylor really enjoyed the meal and so did Michelle, but she was a bit “fished out” as she put it since for the past five nights we had kaiseki for dinner at our ryokans - which included a lot of seafood. She would have enjoyed the meal more if it wasn’t so similar to what she had been having so much before the previous days.
We highly suggest trying a kaiseki meal to anyone visiting Japan. The multi-course meal is definitely a unique experience that we loved having and look forward to eating again on our next trip. Being a 3-star Michelin restaurant, Kikunoi can get quite expensive, but the price is worth it for a one of a kind gastronomical experience. If you’re interested in a kaiseki meal but not willing to pay hundreds for a seat at the exquisite Kikunoi, there are more affordable options.
Kaiseki dinner is provided when staying at a traditional ryokan, so that is an easy way to have it. Most ryokans typically serve their kaiseki in a communal dining room. Some high-end ryokans will serve their kaiseki within their rooms, and through this you get a very nice private dining experience. Kikunoi provides this private dining experience that nicer ryokans have, but the Kikunoi takes the meal to another level with their meal composition and flavors.
Google Maps Link: Kikunoi
